y as in charcoals."

Isabella, almost without knowing it, and without the faintest suspicion
of the real state of the case, gradually neglected and ceased to take
pleasure in her usual occupations; her books, her music, her needle, and
her flowers, all seemed to be equally tiresome and unpleasant. While in
this unhappy state of ennui and loneliness of feeling, peculiar to the
youthful days, or some portion of them, of both sexes, when the mind,
like Hudibras' sword,

"Eats into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack,"

she was thrown into unspeakable grief and consternation, by her uncle
one day proposing to her to receive and encourage the addresses of Don
Gregorio, as her future husband.

To her passionate tears and entreaties to be spared such a dreadful
calamity, that she declared was infinitely worse than death, the old Don
replied, that it was natural for a girl to be frightened at the idea of
leaving a comfortable home, to become the mistress of a family; that he
only wished to provide for her, and see her well settled in life, that
the proposed husband was handsome, rich, and connected by blood with the
viceroy; and also urged many other reasons "too numerous to mention." To
all which, the weeping and agonized girl replied, as soon as her uncle
was out of breath, and she had an opportunity of speaking, "But, my dear
uncle, you know his character, and why, oh! why, will you sacrifice me,
whom you have always treated with so much affection and kindness, to one
whom every one knows to be a fool and a coward?"

The Don was somewhat startled by this appeal. He was certainly aware
that Isabella was perfectly right in so calling her proposed lover, who
he knew was both a silly coxcomb and a despicable coward, but it was
altogether past his comprehension how his modest, retiring, gentle
niece, had found out two such very important points in the character of
a man, whom he had noticed she seemed to avoid more than any one who
visited his house. But after a few days, seeing that her dejection was
extreme, that her appetite and animation had failed, and she was sinking
under the weight of her grief, and being likewise severely rated by the
wife of his bosom, in a curtain lecture, he relented, and calling
Isabella to him one morning, with many expressions of fondness, bade her
cheer up, for though he wished to see her well married, he would by no
means force her inclinations, and she should please herself